


Duck Duck Duck Goose

by Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Gladstone's luck vs three triplets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 20:45:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15915915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch/pseuds/Imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch
Summary: When Donald has a job interview, Gladstone watches the triplets. How hard can it be to keep track of three ducks in a shopping mall? Gladstone's luck verses three excitable kids.





	Duck Duck Duck Goose

**Author's Note:**

> Set before the series, when the triplets are younger, hence Scrooge not watching the kids.

Gladstone nodded his way through Donald's strict instructions and tried not to yawn. The triplets stood in front of him in a neat row. They were as impatient as he was.  

"Relax Don," Gladstone said, throwing an arm round his cousin's shoulder. "How hard can it be to look after these three little angels?"

He'd picked the wrong moment to declare his nephews angels. Dewey, bored, had been kicking idly at the ground but suddenly caught Huey in the leg. Huey looked up from his book, irritable and shoved back at him. A small scuffle ensued which got more vicious when a stray elbow poked Louie in the eye, making him tear up.  

"Boys!" Donald said warningly.

The ducklings fell back into a line with a lot of shuffling and sighs of impatience and a final nudge in the ribs from Dewey to Huey.  

"High spirits," Gladstone said cheerfully. "They'll be fine."

Donald did not look convinced but if he wanted to make his job interview he also didn't have a choice.

"Be good for your Uncle Gladstone," he told the three boys. He sounded uncertain.

"We will," they chorused.

“Don’t run off,” Donald instructed.

“We won’t.”

Donald gave Gladstone, then the triplets one last hesitant look, then finally left.

"Right," Gladstone said, turning to face his nephews. "What shall we do first?"

Excited faces had been staring up at him. At his question the excitement broke into a hurricane of voices and gestures and Gladstone couldn't make out a thing. Before he could ask them to slow down, a clip board appeared in his peripheral vision.  

"Win a years supply of Detolax Pro sir?"

Gladstone had no idea what Detolax Pro was and he was also pretty sure he didn't need it. The salesgirl didn't look like she was going to take no for an answer however so Gladstone scribbled down his name and his number and hoped he was out of the country when the Detolax Pro he had no use for was delivered.

When he looked up he only had one nephew left.

"Louie," Gladstone said in a very measured voice. "Where are Huey and Dewey?"

The young duck had his hands jammed into the pockets of his green hoodie, tears long since dried up.  

"Gone," was the helpful answer.

Gladstone swallowed, pushed down a momentary burst of panic. It was fine. Something happening to his nephews was bad luck, and that sort of thing just didn't happen to him. Still probably better to find them, if only because Donald would worry otherwise.

"Can we go to the pizza place?" Louie asked. "They have this big wheel and you spin it and -"

"Yeah," Gladstone said distractedly, grabbing Louie firmly around the wrist so he wouldn't lose the last one, "maybe in a bit."

He had spotted a red cap near a bank, half hidden by the plants around the fountain.

"Uncle Gladstone just needs to go to the bank first," he said cheerfully. Louie didn't seem especially bothered by the loss of his two brothers, but there was no need to instil any panic in him by panicking himself. Stay cheery Gladstone. 

"Ugh,” was all Louie said.  

Gladstone steered Louie towards the bank, but when he was close enough he saw that the red cap belonged to a young duck in a blue tshirt. Not Huey. Not unless he'd swapped shirts with Dewey. Were they likely to have done that?

No, that was silly. And the duckling didn't really look anything like his nephews.

"Do you think Huey and Dewey want pizza?" Gladstone asked still in his cheery voice. "Shall we find them and then we can all go? Where have they gone do you -"

His hand felt empty. He turned and found he'd been talking to air. So now he'd lost Louie too. That was okay. It had only been a minute, Louie had to be in the immediate area. He spun in a circle but couldn't see a small green hoodie anywhere.

Right.

The mall wasn't a very big place. He had about an hour until Donald was out of his interview. Shouldn't be too hard to round up the triplets and take them for pizza before Donald got back and they could pretend like nothing had happened.

Huey was the most sensible. If he found Huey first, Huey could help him look for the other two brothers. 

He had to work systemically. Where would Huey be? Clothes stores, music stores, beauty shops. None of it screamed Huey. As he was scanning he saw a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye. There on the escalator - blue shirt, kicking idly at the steps - Dewey.

Gladstone set off at a run. The quickest route to the escalator was through the west food court, but as he rushed through the entrance he was stopped by food court attendants in identical caps and stripy aprons and wearing identical grins. One blew a plastic horn.

"Congratulations!" the other said. "You're our hundredth visitor today!"

"Sorry not now!" Gladstone called over his shoulder as he swerved around tables.

By the time he made it to the escalator and rushed to the top, taking the steps two at a time Dewey was gone. Gladstone stopped and looked around. His eyes fell on a bookstore. A board out front advertised a Junior Woodchuck event inside. Huey had been reading one of their guidebooks.

"A free book to every customer this hour!"

Gladstone took the book automatically and strode deeper into the store. In the children's section a Junior Woodchuck Leader was demonstrating some kind of sailors knot to a group of rapt kids. And there, thank goodness, was Huey sitting at the back and practising on a small bit of rope. When Gladstone clapped him on the shoulder he looked up.

"Hello Uncle Gladstone," he said. He held up the knot he'd made.

"I've done reef knots before," Huey continued. "But in a minute we're going to do make boats out of lolly sticks. It's all part of the Story Book Badge. We're reading Lost at Sea."

Gladstone felt a little lost at sea.

"We've got to the go Huey," he said.

Huey's face fell, first he looked near tears and Gladstone didn't know how to cope with tears. Then Huey settled for a frown and stamping his foot.

"But the badge!"

"We need to find Dewey and Louie," Gladstone said.

Huey's expression cleared.

"Oh that's easy," he said. "Dewey will be in the arcade and Louie likes hunting for lost coins by the lockers."

Gladstone sighed in relief. He'd been right to look for Huey first.

"Great!" he said. "Let's go grab them and then Louie suggested pizza."

Huey swung back round to impending tantrum mode.

"How about you go get them," he suggested surprisingly levelly when his face was so stormy. "And I'll stay here. Please Uncle Gladstone I need this badge."

Gladstone wavered. He knew where Huey was now and the other kids parents weren't hanging around. Huey was clearly safe enough.

"Alright," he agreed.

Huey gave him a pleased grin and turned back around to watch as the leader demonstrated a new knot.

Outside the book shop Gladstone was faced with the dilemma of whether to find Dewey or Louie first. He let the fact he could see the lights of the arcade from where he stood settle the indecision. Dewey first.

At the entrance he was accosted by a man with a big pile of tokens.

“I’ve got to go,” he explained. “Do you want these?”

Gladstone took them quickly, anything to keep moving. As he passed one of the machines tokens burst out of the slot at the bottom to the delight of the kids. In the distance he spotted Dewey and he called out but the middle triplet was too busy showing off his dance skills to pay attention.

The skirmish of small children was hard to wade through. The way things had gone with the boys he was almost surprised when he got out the other side and Dewey was still there. When the song finished, he caught Dewey's arm and gently pulled the duckling away.

“But –“ Dewey began, but then he saw the tokens still piled in Gladstone’s arms.

“You’ve got all them and you want to _leave_?”

“We need to get Louie,” Gladstone said firmly. “Then if there’s time we can come back.”

Dewey gave the machine a longing glance but he sighed.

“Louie will be by the gym lockers,” Dewey said with confidence. “He’s good at finding change people forget.”

Gladstone let Dewey lead the way. It took longer than it should have done because on the way Gladstone won a photography contest he’d not intended to enter, been given free return flights to a city of his choice and found twenty dollars on the floor. He gave the twenty dollars to Dewey who was starting to grumble and prayed that Donald’s interviewer would ask him lots of hard questions and keep him occupied for a little while longer.

True to his siblings’ expectations Louie was peering into the lockers, at least the ones he could reach, for forgotten coins.

“I’ve made four dollars and got one of those token things,” he told them cheerily. “It’s got a cat on it.”

He showed Dewey who went rather pale.

“I made twenty dollars,” he said quickly to try and cover up his moment of panic.

Louie turned rapidly to Gladstone, utter betrayal on his face.

“You can have the next twenty that shows up kid,” Gladstone promised, pulling them both quickly towards the bookshop before anything else could happen.  

“Right lets get Huey and we can do the arcade and the pizza thing and most importantly we can stick together from now on,” Gladstone told the boys still trying to be cheerful. His grin felt a little manic at this point. It occurred to him they weren’t really listening. Dewey was whispering hastily to Louie who looked exasperated.

On the escalator Louie suddenly grabbed Gladstone’s arm.

“Uncle Gladstone,” he said. “I need the bathroom.”

The bathrooms were in pretty much the opposite direction.

“Okay we’ll get Huey and go on the way to the pizza place.”

“No,” Louie whined. “ _Now_.”

“Uh –“ Gladstone looked around desperately. Who designed malls? Clearly they’d never had custody of triplets.

“I think the toilets are back there,” Louie said helpfully, pointing back down the escalator.

“Um okay well –“

Louie was jiggling up and down, eyes wide. Huey could probably last a few more minutes with his Junior Woodchuck leader.

“Alright Green Bean,” Gladstone said and steered Louie onto the down escalator. He was half way down when he realised Dewey wasn’t with them.

“Louie.”

“I don’t need the toilet so much anymore,” Louie said. And he tried a big grin.

“Where’d he go?”

Louie gave up what was left of his pretending.

“He had to run back for Huey’s special token,” Louie said somberly. “Huey sort of doesn’t know he had it and he left it in the arcade.”

Louie shrugged.

“He’ll catch up,” he said. 

Gladstone groaned, but at the top of the escalator Dewey did run back towards them.

One more to go. In the bookshop he fended off another free book and marched triplets two and three towards the back of the store to find –

Huey was gone. How had Huey gone?

He caught a sales assistant by the arm.

“Where are the Woodchucks?”

He hadn’t meant to sound so desperate. The sales assistant was a motherly woman and after a glance at Dewey and Louie, she gave Gladstone a sympathetic look.  

“I believe they went to sail their boats in the fountain.”

The fountain. He just had to not lose Dewey or Louie in the short journey there and everything would be just fine. He forced the two of them onto the escalator directly in front of him so he could keep an eye on them. Over the tops of their heads he could see the fountain and he could see Huey’s red cap. He twitched when Huey got up but he just moved a couple of spaces along and retrieved his boat.

A voice came on the tanoy announcing a Mr Gladstone Gander had won their weekly competition and if he went to the help desk he could claim his prize.

Dewey and Louie turned sharply to stare up at him.

“Not a chance,” Gladstone said preempting them before their mouths were open enough to form the words. “We’re going to grab Huey and then we’re going for pizza and we’re all going to sit quietly - oh hey twenty dollars!”

It appeared just as the boys were stepping off. He handed it to Louie.

“Are you going to find one for Huey too?” Dewey asked.

“Sure,” Gladstone said distractedly. The Woodchuck group hadn’t moved yet. He herded the boys forward, forward.

Huey looked up and handed Gladstone his boat.

“I got second place,” he said. “And my badge.”

“Great,” Gladstone said, a little weakly.

“Louie suggested pizza,” he continued.  

“There’s a wheel,” Louie broke in cheerily. “And you spin it and –“

Dewey was showing Huey the twenty dollars he’d gained as Gladstone set them walking.

“He just finds them on the floor,” Dewey said. “He’s way better at it than Louie.”

Gladstone expected Louie to respond but it was suspiciously silent. How?  _How_ had he not learnt?

“Louie?”

He turned. Louie hadn’t followed them from the fountain, was leaning over the edge and fishing out coins. Keep hold of Dewey, make sure Huey was there. Back to the fountain.

“Louie put those back. They’re for –“

Gladstone looked around wildly until he saw the plaque and the name of the charity.

“The children.”

“I’m children.”

“Sick children,” Gladstone grit out.

Louie sighed, but he did as he was told.

Okay pizza. Headcount: one, two, three – now where were they going?

The triplets were running at full tilt, straight across the mall. Gladstone began to run after them but then he saw Donald who didn’t look the least bit phased by the three incoming disaster missiles careening his way. Gladstone slowed to his usual saunter and watched as the triplets leapt at Donald, jumping around him and all asking how his interview went.

“How were they?” Donald asked as Gladstone got closer.

“Oh,” Gladstone said weakly, “they were fine.”

“No trouble?” Donald asked. He was suspicious. Out of sight of Donald the triplets eyes grew wide and then they all turned to look at Gladstone. Seeing their faces, Gladstone couldn't help but grin. 

“None,” Gladstone said with a wink at the kids. “I’m lucky to have such great nephews."  

 


End file.
